keskiviikko 23. marraskuuta 2016

Mordheim Report #12

These things are now ready. 6 ladders and fences, and 2 walkways.

They had their debut yesterday, when I had my first game of our campaign. Unfortunately I lost, and two on my members got dead!
After scavenging for the Wyrdstone I managed to get just enough money to replace them, and additionally had three bows to spare around. So all in all, I ended on the plus side.


Not much to say about these things. Ladders and walkways are done mostly with wooden sticks.

Fences are done by texture roller over some polymer clay. The first quarter of a single fence was actually just a test piece when I got the rollers. I ended up making six of them because the test piece looked good, and I just had bought some big ice cream sticks which ended up as the bases.

Barrels and wheels are of course those I've made with toy dough.

maanantai 31. lokakuuta 2016

Mordheim Report #11

My Possessed warband is getting there. Only two Possessed, one Gor, and a few henchmen to go. This time I got Gor, Magister and a Mutant ready, who are posing in the first row in pic below.


Here's the box I have for them. Custom slots for the metallics, and one size slots for plastics.
I've not yet done all the henchmen since I really don't know how many or what kind I need or want besides the three Gors.

maanantai 24. lokakuuta 2016

Bought a board game

I got Caverna like a month ago. One of the best games I've ever bought.
It's almost like Minecraft survival mode. You need to sow grain and build fencing for animals to keep your dwarven family fed, and also mine tunnels for minerals and space to build additional rooms.
The game comes with a huge box filled to the brim with thick cardboard tiles and wooden tokens, and was pretty messy setting up the first time. The game really needed an insert to keep it organized. And now it has one!

Two pouches are missing in this pic. The player tokens and player aid cards.

The box is pretty big. Picture shortens it a bit, it's much taller than most board game boxes.
Half of its height is used by the many game boards it came with, and the other half by my inserts.

In other news...

Mordheim report #10,5 I guess...


Got some smaller things going on whilst prepping on doing those bigger buildings.
Six fences, six ladders and couple of bridges.


Aaand one simple detail I made. Going to make a stamp mold out of this, so I can get cooler wooden details. Like tables, shelves, stools and such.


maanantai 17. lokakuuta 2016

Mordheim Report #10 - Bring More Men!

Finished up a few more members for my warband.
Below is Snakebeast (Gor), and Darksoul rounding up the painted henchmen types. Other painted ones shown here were Brethren.

And here is my first hero, a Mutant. I gave him some extra attention with a few extra highlight layers. 
I'm a lazy painter and am always trying to get the job done with the least amount of effort as possible, but painting this dude was the first time that I really was enjoying myself mixing the paints and doing more layers (didn't actually end up doing that many, because I wanted to be finished in one evening). I'm now hoping to get that groove on for my Possessed and Magister too!

keskiviikko 12. lokakuuta 2016

Mordheim Report #9

IT IS DONE! The inn and the tower are now finished! Took me a long time to actually force myself not to dabble any more with them. Learned a lot, and hopefully remember what I did for my next buildings.

Here's the full set. The road below can be rolled inside the tower for safekeeping.

One tiny detail I'm proud of is the "enviction notice" on the door. A quick and dirty sculpt followed by a quick and dirty mold, and then stamped with toy clay. The two layer paint job also ended up working.

Here are some of the many toy clay bits painted, the boxes and barrels, the shields on the far side wall, and the stony window frame on tower. Also notice the small shelf in the tower.

Window flaps are also stamped with toy clay. All the torch type thingies, like the ones in the chandelier, are from DIY necklace store. They cost next to nothing, and have pretty good texture.

Next I'm planning on doing a sextet of tall and slim buildings that can be arranged to go around of a big plaza. Here's hoping that those will come together much more quickly.

tiistai 20. syyskuuta 2016

Mordheim Report #8

Here's a few henchmen miniatures ready to be recruited. They'll be a part of Slaanesh snakey-themed Possessed warband.

Next time the Inn and Tower WILL be ready.



maanantai 5. syyskuuta 2016

Mordheim Report #7

The big divider block is almost finished. I might do some more heavy weathering and some metallics over the rust.
Others are WIP.
Here we go! Our miniature club is starting again after a hiatus, and so am I. Old Stuff is getting some color, and new stuff is being made.

I'm easily excited. After seeing a bunch of big ice cream sticks, I went and bought some for myself, and then these emerged.
On top of all those I got my first Mordheim warband member painted. It's been so long since I've used white basecoat spray that I kinda messed it up. Sometimes the first few seconds of spray, it leaves this awful rubbley surface, like it has melted the plastic. Fortunately with a bit of work you can scrub it off, but unfortunately I was too quick to get painting, and this poor fellow has some really bad skin problems. (Hence the dramatic lighting, to mask it off).


tiistai 2. elokuuta 2016

Billions of bits



This is what I've been doing at work when I have some time to spare. They have been made by using the stamp molds I've been fiddling around, and the green stuff is not actually Green Stuff, but that My Dough which is meant for children.
They shrink a lot, and crack somewhat, but I might even consider that as a plus, when they are meant for Mordheim. It's a lot harder to do any variations on identical bits if they are cast from resin or plaster.

perjantai 20. toukokuuta 2016

Mordheim report #6 or, where the hell has my time gone?

Just when I was starting to be proud of my semi-monthly update schedule things start to stall.
Most of my free time is either going to whatever is shown in this blog, or playing video games with friends.
I've been neglecting my video game duties and have found myself holding a piece of terrain almost every evening, but STILL these things aren't shaping up at expected rate.

Not much more to show than this:
What's better than taking a bad phone picture of  an unfinished terrain featuring an unpainted miniature!

tiistai 12. huhtikuuta 2016

Mordheim report #5

Sir! Mordheim reporting in. We are forming an Inn. Over.
My second second outwards collapsing building is starting to shape up.


keskiviikko 6. huhtikuuta 2016

Mordheim report #4

Once you pop...

...you'll get a road!

Vinyl wallpaper is awesome (and expensive). No way I could've had anything so good looking to go in such a small space with anything else I can think of.
Now I know what you all thinking "that thing is gonna wrap all to hell, and curl and roll off the table!". I thought so too, but somehow it defies that logic. It unwraps and stays super straight. Maybe more time will tell the real tale, but for now it's really awesome.


It still needs some work I guess. I thought it would blend better to the table, but few browns will be necessary. That divider block next to it has also got some work done. The stone wall shown there is final, metal plating and bars are not.
So far I'm really loving the dual color scheme of brown and gray, just like Mordheim should be.


The last thing to show is a sewer grate that got made yesterdays coffee break. It's function was to hold down the road that I was sure would wrap and curl. It holds a giant metal washer under the ProCreate and thus is really heavy.
It's also quite big, 4 cm across. The tunnel in the pic above is also 4 cm wide. It might be dumb looking as I've yet to introduce the grate to the road (I have it at work still). If I deem it worthy I can make a stamp mold out of it and have a bunch of 'em, and if not, buy smaller washers and re-sculpt the whole thing.

a Sewer grate sculpted over a big metal washer.

tiistai 22. maaliskuuta 2016

Mordheim report #3

I'd say the first building is ready now! Spent some more time painting this than the first, and it's getting there. I chose the worst colors for it, and tried to get it to work and am quite happy with the results.
That water damage effect is so easy to do and breaks up the flat surfaces nicely that I think it'll be my one thing in common with all the buildings.

Failfocus here, sorry bout that.



I'm real happy how the wood planks turned out. The flat surfaces could use something more, like details or just a layer of drybrushing, but that's for the next building. One thing I still might add to this is some scorched edges.


Next up is unfinished divider block (in awful lighting!) These things are so good with the game, as covers so much ground it really limits shooting and line of sight.


Just flat colors and some inking. It still needs a handful of layers.


No Mordheim table is finished until it has a tower made out of a Pringles tube! Here's the start of mine.
This of course doesn't fold in any way, and will be one of the few set piece buildings I plan doing along with the more simple collapsible ones.


I added a layer of wavy cardboard on top of it to give it some thickness, and add a layer of vinyl wallpaper to add the texture. I plan on breaking that texture with some chipped plaster looking stuff, maybe with filler, or just paper wallpaper. We'll see.

While this thing doesn't fold, I'm planning on leaving the bottom half empty to house something specific in it to, again, save all the space I can. And that specific thing will be covered in the next post.

maanantai 14. maaliskuuta 2016

Molding is childs play!

I bought this new molding stuff to try out. It's real easy to use but has limited applications. Only thing you do is boil water, drop a handful in there and let it melt. After the water has cooled so you can fish it out you just slap the stuff on your master and let it harden, and boy does that thing harden! It's about as hard as a plastic bucket, now imagine you have something detailed stuck in there. If there is even a tiny bit of negative in the mold, it's real hard to get out.
It's also reusable!



Here is a bit I made using ProCreate. Mold holds details really well!


Now the real deal here is that I wanna have something really simple. No resin measuring, no epoxy kneading, no plaster dust and no mess with clay. Enter My Dough!



It's one part, doesn't leave a mess and hardens without oven (also smells nice). These are the things I wanted out of the stuff. Pretty cheap too! 6€ for the tube.
It has its disadvantages too. It shrinks quite a bit, loses some of the sharpest details, and is somewhat brittle (I'd say in a ballpark of plaster). The shrinking is the thing though which makes it hard to use. For example that window frame above would never work with My Dough, since the mold don't allow it to shrink lengthwise, it'll rip itself apart.

And here's a copy of a thing that My Dough excels at. A simple stamp type mold. 
Both have been made using the same mold. Shrinking is real!



Next up is something a bit challenging, barrels and boxes, and other more three dimensional objects.

perjantai 4. maaliskuuta 2016

Mordheim report #2

Got some stone steps finished.
Not much detail here, as a friend pointed out, but I'd like to keep these clean of clutter since they are such small pieces themselves.






The recipe for these are just flat gray base, black wash, light brown wash, heavy drybrush with the base gray, and light drybrush with a lighter gray.
The colors I used were Vallejo Cold Gray (if my memory serves me right), the one brighter gray Stonewall Gray. The heavy black wash was oil color, I just wanted to test that shit out. Some Army painter sand color for the second wash, I diluted it like 40% color 60% water.

tiistai 1. maaliskuuta 2016

Mordheim report #1

Here's the bare-bones collapsible prototype building from below. It still lacks the details and of course the paint job.
Some minor failings are present in this one in general, but I think my next one will be pretty much perfect, mechanically speaking.



And here's the first Prototype collapsing towards itself.
The photo here is just showing off the quick and dirty paint job of just a few flat colors and brown oil paint wash over them.

Red circles show magnet placements, holding the thing together.

tiistai 16. helmikuuta 2016

Treeman progress #6

Another lazy tuesday, another progress report on the Treeman.

Baby got back.

Slowly but steadily he is gaining some midriff mass. His other butt cheek is still pretty non existent, I have to put more junk in his trunk.

That thing he is holding is just a spare bit I made (may have had a double coffee break). Fimo is getting pretty unviable at that scale, and pretty soon I need to branch out to something else for the details.

keskiviikko 10. helmikuuta 2016

Hard times are over

Hello again!
I've been so overwhelmed with work that no time has been given to anything but relaxing afterwards. Now that things seem to be somewhat normalized, I have the brain power to continue posting these ramblings.

Many of these projects shown here are sorta lika side stuff that gets made whenever I have any inspiration for them. My previous attempts at doing something "full-time" have been bad, I get easily distracted and bored of any single thing (that's why I have three different board game projects going on at the same time). But here I go again, trying to get something bigger together fairly quickly.

 It's Mordheim!

Oh Mordheim, my favorite GW game of all time, oh how broken and random you are at your core.
In Mordheim the main focus isn't actually the figures, but the terrain. The game needs lots of it. And with lots of something there is the aspect of transporting and storing it.

So here's my project: collapsible Mordheim buildings!

I've already done one such building, but it folded towards itself rather than outwards. That design, while it was really tightly packed and cool, had many flaws that I hope to remedy with this new, somewhat clumsy looking thing.

The main things I want to achieve with this is of course is to minimize the amount of air needed to store and carry around, but I also want them to be easily assembled - I don't want just to have a bunch of loose walls in a box, but one whole thing that you pick up and fold together.